Getting The Most From The Moor

William Shakespeare's Othello, a still-fervid drama of racism and treachery, is the latest of the Bard's classics to get a makeover at the Florida Shakespeare Theatre.

The nearly 400-year-old play arrived for its premiere at the swanky Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables over the weekend with the look, feel and sweaty humidity of In the Heat of the Night. The Southern hot-sauce recipe is full of loud snarls from start to finish in a big, noisy, angry production.

The freewheeling adaptation comes from Toronto's Walking Shadow Theatre, where director Rod Carley appears as eclectic as former FST director John Briggs in his choice of Shakespearean repertoire. It was Briggs who brought us Hamlet-as-The Godfather, among similar projects.

Carley's update is The Othello Project, its title serving as evidence of the liberties taken with the original. There are some cuts, though not many; the current version runs just under three hours with one intermission. The story, despite modern references to location and politics, is very recognizably Othello _ so much so that shifting the setting to Mississippi in 1964, during the Civil Rights movement, puts an intellectual strain on the theatrical experience.

The underwriting that makes this large-scale production possible comes from the show's role as the FST's educational project. Thousands of middle and high school students are being bused to the theater to soak up classical theater via The Othello Project on weekdays, with public performances weekends only. From a classical standpoint, the show can be justifiably ripped for its lack of reverence for the original, for structural flaws edited in with the changes, and for thematic distortions. But this is a hearty modern knockoff, and The Othello Project consistently rings the bells on the emotional meter.

The movie officially invoked by the update is Mississippi Burning. That was also an adaptation of the true story of the disappearance of three civil rights workers in '64. Trying to fit a context that specific gives The Othello Project its most vexing structural problem. Otherwise, Carley's vision is a clever synthesis of Southern racial and social stereotypes, with a few government bogeymen thrown in.

The 18-member cast clambers about on a set that re-creates broken-down shacks in a steamy bayou. Spanish moss droops everywhere, a hangman's rope is visible in a stand of trees, a tire floats amid lily pads in the still waters of the swamp (yes, lots of real water) and an old, bent sign warns visitors to beware of alligators.

Othello (Anthony Hubert) is a black FBI agent sent to Cypress, Miss., a small town where the Ku Klux Klan is suspected of recent racial violence. Othello enrages the local white political bigwig, Senator Brabantio (Dan Brady), by marrying his daughter Desdemona, (Margery Lowe).

The agent also infuriates his aide, Iago (Jeff Miller), by passing over him to promote Cassio (A.J. Pitts) as his lieutenant. The stung Iago plots to ruin Othello, with no concern for how many other lives he must ruin in the process. Iago pretends to be everybody's best friend, especially the dimwitted Roderigo (Peter Paul De Leo), a backwoods white boy who hangs out in pool halls and hankers for Desdemona.

There also is a clown, the senator's servant. He's portrayed here as as a voodoo conjure-man (Steven Henry) who observes almost everything and takes part in some escapades himself.

Few plays in the whole of theater history allow actors so much opportunity to chew scenery and look good doing it. Evil seeps from Iago, misdirected blind jealousy screams from Othello, pure innocence radiates from Desdemona, stupid resentment piles up inside Roderigo, Cassio nearly drowns in his unquestioning trust. The supporting roles offer numerous scene-stealing opportunities as well.

Broadway revivals have gloried in Othello's melodrama, so it should not be surprising to see Carley whip this team into a dramatic frenzy. The cast, in turn, taunts the audience into a dither. If you want theater that turns you on, works you up and sends you home in an adrenaline rush, this is it.